Why Reports About Anthropic's Revenue Are Adding To AI Stock Woes

AI stocks slumped again Thursday, after reported revenue numbers from Anthropic failed to reignite excitement. Chip stocks, including Nvidia (NVDA), were lower while Anthropic cloud partner and investor Amazon.com (AMZN) fell as well.

Anthropic on Wednesday held a closed-door briefing for investors to detail its third-quarter results. According to multiple reports, revenue was $16.8 billion in the third quarter, up from $11.6 billion a quarter earlier. The AI startup also told investors that it was profitable on an "adjusted basis."

The reports cite unnamed sources. Anthropic has not yet published audited financial figures.

The meeting comes ahead of its potential November initial public offering that could value the Claude AI model developer at $2 trillion.

Anthropic's Q3 revenue is "impressive by any reasonable measure," Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne said in a Thursday client note. But the company's "sequential trend line is creating some concern," Materne added. 

Revenue grew about 45% sequentially in Q3, compared with a 143% jump in Q2, according to the reports.

"It has been reported that some of this deceleration is due to two bigger customers pulling back on spend and cleaning up the base (i.e. shutting off customers distilling the model), and importantly, the implied guidance for (Q4) implies a reacceleration," Materne wrote. "So in aggregate, the long-term narrative remains positive, but the near-term direction of travel creates a little unease in a tech tape that is already skittish."

AI Stocks In Focus

The news adds to a rough run for some big name stocks tied to the AI buildout. Nvidia is down 2.4% at 215.87 in recent trades on the stock market today. Shares have lost 5% this week. Anthropic is a key customer for Nvidia's chips, while Nvidia is also an Anthropic investor.

Amazon stock is down 0.6% at 252.55 in recent trades. Shares have lost nearly 4% this week. Amazon earlier this year committed to investing up to $25 billion in Anthropic, on top of a prior $8 billion investment. Anthropic, in turn, committed to spending $100 billion with Amazon's cloud business over the next several years.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) is also an investor and cloud provider to Anthropic. But Google stock is ahead by a half-percent at 349.60 in recent trades. Google's Gemini models also compete with Anthropic's Claude offering.

Anthropic's upcoming IPO will be a major test for the AI ecosystem. It will mark the first public debut for an AI lab. Rival OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is expected to follow Anthropic's debut with an IPO in 2027. A report last week that OpenAI's annualized revenue was less than previously believed sparked a sell-off for AI stocks.

Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson told clients Thursday that its understandable the slowing sequential growth would be "worrisome." But he said there are other factors for investors to consider.

"We'd also note that 1) annualizing revenue trends around very short time frames can be misleading (particularly when they are based on third hand commentary)," Bryson wrote. "And 2) last quarter saw more competition from alternatives to Anthropic (whether Muse or even Co-Pilot) and Anthropic still grew 45% sequentially despite such significant growth numbers."

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